champions
by Shiluette
Summary: A triangle-love-affair is never a good idea as well. Atoryo, Tezuryo.


You would think that he would get over it, when he is seventeen and old enough to stand up for himself. _Not that he can't,_ Keigo thinks, _that's not the point at all._ But there are times, oh, yes, there are times when Ryoma is a bundle of genius and slander and other times when he can go quite the other way.

Ryoma's eyes grow wide comically when he sees his old captain and whispers out a name. It does not have the jovial tone of Momoshiro's or the exultant silliness of Kikumaru's, and even that would have been preferable to Ryoma's own version. Everyone else, who was present anyhow, the old rivals and friends and spies who had no business there, had nodded respectfully and smiled, befuddled somewhat. Speech had ceased. Made a note: so this is Tezuka Kunimitsu now.

Only Ryoma made the name sound like a prayer.

0

Later that week.

Ryoma has quickly been downgraded in Keigo's mind to Echizen. It is no use pretending that they are sleeping together at all, Keigo concludes glumly, when Echizen is acting like the twelve year old he always was and has not quite grown out of his captain religion. He ignores his phone until it is clear that Echizen has not called him for an entire week.

"Of course, it could be that, you know," Ryou says, "They're catching up. That's what people do, don't they."

"We are not living in the Victorian times," Keigo snaps. He is splayed across his armchair, his legs dangling out from the armrest. Other times he would have struck this pose as his whim for dramatics; today he is just tired. "They have the phone, or god knows, Tezuka could have flown in earlier. He didn't starve himself to go pro."

"It isn't like Tezuka to be social," Yuushi observes. He is enjoying himself far too much for his liking. He is waving his book flap, pretending to read _The Sorrows of Young Werther_ and quoting random passages of Werther that makes Keigo want to strangle him. "Or dramatic. So I don't know how your argument stands, I'm afraid."

"Yes, well," Keigo says, "Tezuka isn't like much of anything, is he?"

"Look," Ryou says now; at least he has the good sense in him to look distressed, "Why don't you go and talk to him?"

"Because," Keigo snaps, and he wonders how to make his assertion sound less petty as is should not sound, "He's always acted like a child with Tezuka there and he'll act one now."

Ryou sighs. "Keigo," he says flatly, "You can sometimes be a dumbass."

Keigo glares at him.

Yuushi clears his throat and reads, "If only I could see blood— I know I would feel better! Oh, I have picked up a knife a hundred times with the intention of plunging it into my own heart!—"

"Shut up," Keigo says, for the tenth time that day, "That isn't even in relevance. I won't plunge a knife through my heart and Echizen isn't about to get married, Nor," he fends off Yuushi's batting eyelashes with a snap, "Is Echizen even at that stage yet. So, yes, my first verdict holds. Shut up."

"Such a tragic name," Yuushi says, clutching his heart, "Whatever happened to endearments between lovers? Where is Ryo, where is Ryoma-chan?" (Keigo has never called him that, what utter rubbish.)

Keigo sneers at him. "You are confusing this drama with a poorly constructed love-triangle and Werther was a self-obsessed maniac," he says, "And I am done."

Ryou sighs and rubs his eyes. Out of them three here in the room, he feels as if he is the most normal, human being that is capable of functioning a coherent sense of logic. So he voices out his verdict. "Look, don't faint, but I texted that kid an hour ago. He should be here soon. And I did it," he adds defensively, when they look at him, Keigo somewhat aghast and Yuushi delighted, "because with you two, it'll be about sniping and quoting random bullshit. Which is lame. Like, really lame."

Keigo does not faint, but he does reach over to hit him.

0

"So," Echizen says.

Keigo looks up at the ceiling.

"Tezuka-buchou asked about you."

"That's nice," Keigo says, "As if he is incapable of calling me himself. But he is such a quaint monk, isn't he?"

"Monkey king," Ryoma says.

Keigo snaps his head down to earth and glares at Echizen. The boy is sitting across from him wearing his prim school uniform and Keigo notes that his tie is for once, not dangling about his shoulders but tied, as a tie should be. He is wearing his glasses, the ones that he purchased recently: according to him, he had spent too much of his time playing tennis video games as a child and it has come to haunt him.

"You look like a mini-Tezuka," he says rudely, "And we can do away with the nicknames. Soon I'll resort to calling you brat, and then where will we be?"

"You _do_ call me brat," Echizen points out reasonably. Keigo is irritated. Why is everyone suddenly cultivating reason? It is unnerving.

"When you are one, yes," he says, "Which you are, right now."

"I've just been sitting here." Soon, Keigo sees, that Echizen would not be holding off his calm demeanor any longer and he will sulk and sneer and they will resort to exchanging pettier insults. Keigo cannot wait.

But then Ryoma asks, "Are you being jealous?"

Keigo diverts his eyes to the ceiling again. "Why," he asks to his glided painted ceiling of beauty, since it seems to be the best chance of providing him an answer, "Why is that the only answer plebeians come up with? Jealousy. When it doubt, thou name shall be jealousy."

"Don't call me a plebian or I'll call you a buffoon," Echizen snaps (ah, there is the petty insult), "That's what you're acting like, right now. You're moping and ignoring my texts and badmouthing me."

"You haven't sent texts."

"I have." He hears Echizen standing up; a moment later, narrowed hazel eyes and black hair taint his vision of his glorious ceiling. "You must have lost them somewhere."

_By the name of Oshitari_, he thinks, _I wish I were still captain. I would have made him run laps till he fainted, that stupid romantic._ Instead, all he can do is frown, and Echizen frowns back.

"Are you?" he needles. Echizen's glasses obscure his eyes, so Keigo does not know if Echizen is amused or curious.

Keigo does not know how to say, _well, it is the way you look at him._ Does not know to explain_, no, it's not that, but the way you talk to him as if he is not human. He has not done anything yet, he has not won any titles, he is just a man in training. He is good; he is not great. You say his name as if he is the Cult of tennis, as if he alone brought our national glory through tennis. We are not quite there yet, and mayhap he might not be the one to bring it to us. _

But to say such words is a pretense of having never seen Tezuka at play. Oh, he has seen, he has played him. Tezuka is sacred within the realms of his courts. It is just that, at the end of the day, it is tiring to follow Ryoma and his worship of his captain. He has respected Tezuka and perhaps even obsessed over his tennis, but idolization is a foreign concept.

So he sighs. "Yes, if that would make you happy," he says snidely, "I suppose that is one common word to put up for auction. What a waste of our language."

Echizen tilts his head, and the tilt from upside down makes him look comic. "Hmm," he says, and Keigo sees his eyes narrowing further.

"Does that answer make you think?" he asks, "I gave you the simplest answer that could have been. I despair of your intellect."

Echizen flicks a finger at him mid-air. "I try," he says.

0

Tezuka says politely, "I heard about you and Echizen."

Keigo thinks it's too early for this.

Tezuka had called, against his odds (this is why he will never gamble, he tells Yuushi, shortly after hanging up the phone; today he is reading _Wuthering Heights_) and he is at a small café with untouched coffee and stifling a yawn.

"Very nice," he says, "About us? Failing to murder each other? Shame, isn't it."

Tezuka regards him with calm. It unnerves him, that gaze. They are the same age, he reminds himself, and Tezuka is from an old, respectable family of civil servants, but at the end of the day Keigo has seen the world further, read more, knew people better. That is all he has to compare to, hasn't he, he thinks, languages and world-views. And then he has an afterthought: well, I also have Echizen. Whatever that may count for.

"I heard you two were…" he hesitates, "…well, in a relationship."

Keigo gets to stirring his coffee. It will get cold soon, and he is not willing to risk ordering another one to prolong this meeting. "Yes," he says, "We are. Is that settled, then?"

They can talk about tennis. Ask him: how is your tennis regime? Although he knows: he sees the news, like everyone else, and more, and he was not exaggerating when he had once deemed himself to be obsessed over Tezuka's tennis. He had followed his rival's career, but that does not mean he wants to have a heart-to-heart talk with him. He opens his mouth do just that, but Tezuka beats him to it.

"I wish you wouldn't," Tezuka says. "Echizen is very delicate, sometimes."

Keigo stops his stirring. He jerks up, stares. Tezuka has not broken his gaze; he is sincere then, Keigo thinks, he is not joking, not that he would.

"You wish?" he echoes, "Have you told Ryoma about this?"

He stresses the name: _you use a surname, and I do not. You may be his mentor but I claim his body and heart. In the end, what are we ruled by, Tezuka? Tell me that. _

Tezuka flinches, minutely; so he succeeded in driving his point home.

"That's not what I meant," he says. He clears his throat. "I'm sorry, Atobe. That's not how I wanted to say things."

He takes his own cup and takes a small sip. Keigo watches him, suddenly distasteful. He should have ignored that call. Who is he, anyhow, to summon me? Respect and obsession turns to outrage.

"I meant that," Tezuka falters again, coughs, "that Echizen is…well, I never though he was into his own gender. He once dated this girl, you see."

"How chummy Seigaku is," Keigo says, "To know the ins and outs of their teammates sex lives."

Tezuka has it in him to look away. "No, it isn't that at all," he says, "Well. They held hands. That was all, but."

"That was middle school." Keigo stops and leans back. Allows the words to sink in: your reign with him ended with middle school. "This is now."

"He is confused," Tezuka insists. He looks resigned like a martyr. He does not want to be having this conversation either, but, always the martyr blood in him. "I think you should give him space."

"I haven't forced myself on him," Keigo says. Slowly. Coldly. "If that is what you are implying."

"No." Tezuka's voice is firmer and resolute. He even shakes his head a little. "Of course not, Atobe. No. I'm just saying that," he stops and rubs his cheek. They are hollowed. They are older, then. Not by much, not really, but somewhat, yes.

"I'm just saying, he might be confused about things that are not tennis. Just," Tezuka is beseeching, "He acts like such a child sometimes, doesn't he, when he isn't playing tennis? I forget how young he is, sometimes."

_That's you_, Keigo wants to snipe. But it is a good point to conclude. Keigo nods, and Tezuka mirrors the gesture and his face clears.

"I'm glad we came to an understanding," he says, and calls the waiter for another cup of tea (Keigo hides a grimace).

_I will kill him_, he thinks. Out loud he says, "So, Tezuka, one can't be too boastful about their imminent pro career. How is your tennis?"

0

"Your captain," Keigo says, "is against our marriage."

"What?" Ryoma says (he has the honor of being promoted to a first-name basis again, not that the brat would figure it out); and a moment later, a bit too quick for his liking, adds in, "No, he's not."

"He's not against us marrying?"

"No, he's not against us. Stop saying weird crap, Keigo."

"I never said anything about his opposition to us, as an entity." Keigo lets a grim smile plaster his face. "So you knew."

Ryoma eyes him. "Knew what?"

"How did he even found out? And no," he waves a hand at Ryoma's attempt to speak, "Don't play dumb. You already excel at that. Play an intellect, for a change. That would greatly amuse me, I daresay."

Ryoma closes his mouth and scowls. Keigo lets his grim smile fall off and they stare at each other sullenly.

"He's not against us," Ryoma tries out again, "I mean. How should I know?"

"He told me," Keigo says flatly. Tired, he closes his eyes and crosses his legs. "Invited me for a chat over a cup of tea, told me I corrupted your pure tennis morals and gave me money to dash off."

"He did not."

"Not the money part, no. As if he had any at the moment."

"Monkey king."

He opens his eyes again. "What good is a threat," he wonders aloud, "If there is nothing to back it up save your stoniness?"

"Stop insulting my captain," Ryoma says tiredly, "He did not. You're making this up."

"I am not." He observes the younger boy, contemplates. "Who was the girl," he asks after a moment, "You held hands with? When you were in diapers?"

"What?"

Keigo waves a hand: it is not important, but, just in case. "When your captain was still watching your every move and you were a cocky little brat (not that you still aren't). Did you hold hands with a girl?"

"No I didn't." And Ryoma looks annoyed and Keigo thinks, almost with surprise,_ he is lying to me_, but Ryoma's face soon clears. "Oh. Oh, yeah. I did. Once. It was a dare." He shrugs irritably. "Are you going to go all crazy on a dare too? Momoshiro-senpai made me do it. It was weird."

Keigo smiles. He holds out a hand to Ryoma; Ryoma looks at it warily.

"What now," he says.

"We should make up. Hold hands, let me corrupt you a bit more."

Ryoma takes the hand willingly and gives Keigo an almost fond look.

"If you have a captain fetish," he says sweetly, "I could call you captain in bed."

"Oh please, no," Keigo says, firmly, horrified at the very prospect, and Ryoma laughs; Keigo thinks: _and Tezuka says I've corrupted his morals._

0

to be continued


End file.
